Monday, March 17, 2014

THEY: AN ANSWER

GARY LLOYD at CSU CHANNEL ISLANDS

Confrontational
art proved itself alive and well at California State University Channel Islands, where the
Art Department sponsored an installation and accompanying performance by Gary
Lloyd last Thursday, March 13, in a small gallery at their Camarillo
campus. “They: An Answer Driving
the Problem, Revisted” took an updated look at work that has preoccupied the
artist for many years, in an “interactive multimedia exhibition probing climate
change and the impact of technology.”

“They,”
as the exhibit and the artist’s gloss make clear, is actually “Us.” The human species. The overwhelming evidence—a good deal
of it documented through a variety of media in the current show—is that our
planet is in serious trouble. With
species disappearing at alarming rates, the ice cap melting, droughts, floods
and fires in many parts of the globe, and so on—it’s a depressingly familiar
list--the preponderance of credible science tells us that we are in danger of
rendering the earth uninhabitable before the end of this present century. Worse, we are rapidly approaching the
tipping point beyond which all human efforts will be in vain. This dire situation is compounded by
the stranglehold in which the global ecosystem is held by corporate powers
whose priority is profit, not the welfare of the Earth.

Lloyd
is convinced that we, the people of this planet, have “the answer”, if only we can find the will to use our
technology in ways that benefit the earth rather than exploit it. The technology, he insists, is simple, user-friendly, and as close to hand as a smart phone. His performance gave him the opportunity to demonstrate his
thesis, using Skype to instantaneously link like-minded people in China,
Southern California and New York, in texts delivered in Mandarin Chinese and
Spanish as well as English, in an offhand display of already ubiquitously existing
systems we can use to facilitate communications and deploy our critical human
intelligence in the resolution of our common problems.

Intertwined
with the communications issue is that of our energy consumption—and that’s not
only the fossil fuels we Americans devour in vastly greater quantities than are
our share as global citizens, but also the source of protein we use to fuel our
bodies: meat. The freeze-dried
“meat axe” Lloyd created many years ago makes its doleful reappearance in the
current show, reminding us of our ancient dependence on this food, and the only
recently understood effects of its attendant demands on our natural
environment. Juxtaposed with his
curiously “primitive” use of advanced technology, Lloyd’s trademark axes,
skulls, and dug-out “book boats” remind us of the early roots of our human technology, and of the relatively short journey on which it has led us to wreak such havoc on the
planet we inhabit.

Conscious
that his performance was addressed primarily to college-aged art students, the
artist was at pains to leave them a coherent, urgent and incontrovertible message: “I’m
committed to this work; the planet expects—demands—no less of you.” The performance ended on a deeply
personal, confessional note, whose emotional intensity was unmistakable. The father of two teenage boys, Lloyd
made clear the responsibility he feels not only to the fragile and sorely
tested Mother Earth, but to the family that is his own natural heritage. It’s a responsibility that he poignantly
required his audience to share.